The Boomerang
Phenix City: The Wickedest City in America by Edwin Strickland and Gene Wortsman Chapter Two: The Boomerang It was a sultry night when a man's shin felt like an over- coat. The gaudy neons along Phenix City's Fourteenth Street vice strip flashed their customary lurid invitations. In his law office, where he had fought so many battles, a tired man whipped up his remaining energies for a last round fight that he knew he must win. Only eighteen days earlier Albert Patterson had been nominated on the Democratic ticket as Attorney General of Alabama with a margin of less than fifteen hundred voces. He had campaigned as "Man Against Crime" particularly the crime which, he declared, was rampant in his own home town. Now those criminals whom his triumph endangered were moving quickly to throw his victory at the polls before the State Democratic Executive Committee, where they hoped to have the outcome reversed. Because he Iived with them, Patterson was one of the few men in the state who knew the ruthlessness of che crime machine he had battled. He was aware that the machine now was desperate and was convinced he was living on borrowed time. Two days earlier he had predicted his death at a luncheon speech to a group of women. Without any attempt at grand- standing, he told them that he had only a hundred-to-one chance of becoming Attorney General, and he added that the gangsters could not afford to let him take office. Yet Patterson sat alone that night of June 18, 1954. He had returned late from a trip to Montgomery and went right to his office to finish signing "thank you" letters to his supporters. Sixty years old, he was tired from the two months' campaign. His money was all gone. He was eleven thousand dollars in debt. He didn't know where to find additional funds if his election should be taken before the State Commisssion. At 9 p.m., he picked up his cane, which he used because of a World War I leg injury, and clumped slowly down the stairs to the street. His figure was outlined briefly under a lit I red light as he turned the comer of the building to where his car was parked in an alley. Several persons, entering or leaving two nearby restaurants and a movie house, recognized the town's most prominent citizen. A moment later four pistol shots crashed in rapid succession, and the crippled crime-fighter staggered from his car. For the first time since 1918 he walked without his cane, he walked fifteen steps with a bullet in his brain and two more in his chest before he fell, face-down on the pavement, at the bottom of the stairs leading to his office. He tried to speak to a youth who rushed to him. He choked on his own blood and died without identifying his killer. Hi'iS Gibson, a night cook in Smitty's Cafe, was getting off work. Just forty yards away from the killing in the alley, he heard the shots. He looked up to see a man dash from the scene, run across the rear of a wooded lot and disappear at Fourteenth Street, beside the post office. Gibson described the man for officers, but said he would not be able to recognize him again. Minutes after Patterson fell on the sidewalk, the lot was filled with onlookers who trampled over the scene, wiping out any possibihcy of getting footprints of the killer, Local police officers and deputy sheriffs pawed over the car. An hour later Police Chief Pal M. Daniel ordered the lot roped off to keep reporters and photographers from interfering. Word of Patterson's assassination flashed over the state like the effect of an electric shock. People who had voted for him joined with his political supporters and friends to demand the quick apprehension of the killer. The state's chief criminal investigator, Joe Smelley, was rushed to the scene with a few quickly selected men and Highway Patrol officers. There was much buzzing around the scene. For days there appeared no direction in the case, views of investigating officers differed; one group would make an arrest— or, so they said—without notifying other in- vestigators, but the Highway Patrol, the sheriff's office, and the city police all admitted they were not getting anywhere. Arch B. Ferrell, machine-elected solicitor, and Albert Fuller, gun-swinging deputy sheriff, gave only lip service to the investigation. They hardly blinked when the dead man's son, John Patterson, charged that the men leading the investigation were the most likely suspects. The challenge did taunt Ferrell into issuing a statement on June 24. "Since first learning of this horrible murder," he declared, "I have sought and received the active assistance of every official investigator known to me, and have cooperated with them to the utmost limits of my physical and mental en- durance. I shall continue to do so, unceasingly, until this dirty, brutal, shocking killing has been fully and finally solved." The day following his statement, Ferrell was removed from the case by Acting Attorney General Bernard F. Sykes. John Patterson's charge was based on known facts. He knew that Fuller was a three-hundred-dollar-a-month deputy who flashed $1,000 bills, who possessed an arsenal of guns, who wore expensive clothes, who had killed men "in line of duty" under suspicious circumstances (as detailed in another chapter), and who— on the night of the Patterson murder- had come to the scene without his own pistol. This was the first time in years that Fuller, the pistol-worshiper, had not packed a rod. Patterson knew that Ferrell had opposed his father active- ly, had fraternized with the gambling clique, had overlooked gambling and crime in the community for years, and stood to lose his law license, his post of solicitor, and his place of influence in the county should Patterson ever go into office. Once Sykes took over the investigation on June 25, Attorney Generalral Silas Garrett, Sykes' superior, came to Phenix City, talked loud and swaggered about the courthouse, lk{k l'i"\,iS"sryle hat bobbing above the crowd of onlookers. tfiirr(.ni said he had three theories of the killing but did not i -■Mint any of them to listeners. Sykesl furnished Ferrell an alibi— saying he had been talk- ing long distance to the solicitor at the time of the murder. A report was issued— and never denied— that Ferrell had given his gun to Garrett. At a press conference, Garrett boasted that he had spear- headead Patterson's opposition, Ferrell, swigging liquor, de- clared of Patterson, "I always hated the son-of-a-bitch." lilt' fast-talking Garrett promised to take personal charge of the investigation and said he would not quit until the killer was arrested. He defended Ferrell as the "best damn' AG for all the state," and said he would not remove him till ordered to do so by the Governor or the Supreme Court. liitrrerr's pursuit of the murderer or murderers was even nilUT Nhurrlivcd than Ferrell's, On June 23, he departed the •hlo 1(1 rest from what he described as his ordeal in the in- H; 11 (ion. fkcN had not wanted the job as head of the probe. Gov- ^r ( ; union Persons and State Supreme Court Chief Justice lit Livin^ton prevailed upon him to rake it, and to be- ^fl Acting Attorney General. fkcN set up headquarters in the Ralston Hotel in Colutn- 'Gt'tinna, across the river from Phenix City. His constant I . \t ere Assistant Attorney Generals Lee Barton and rv Smirii, later joined by Montgomery atromey Mac- ^uhl ( lailion, as Governor Persons' personal representative, A ic.im of officers now began fanning out from head- tctK, through both Phenix City and Columbus, through una, into Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Texas, North and Carolina, Kentucky, New Mexico, and other states ng down clues and persons thought to be witnesses. A lie detector machine was rushed into Columbus and numerous persons were tested on it. Witnesses were jailed, frequently for their own protection. A crew of stenographers and file clerks set up a voluminous set of records, interviews, and background information. On July d, Sykes in effect removed Ferrell from the office of solicitor, though FerrelE continued to draw his salary. Sykes assigned Ferrell to write a full report on his activities in the murder investigation. That report never was finished— if it ever was started. And two days later Ferrell w^as questioned for ten hours about the killing, then told to return to his report. Deputy Fuller, at this cicne, was in bed with a fractured back, having been tossed from a horse on Independence Day. But the work of the investigators, including the jailing of witnesses, was hush-hush. Sykes revealed no information. No suspects were arrested. Ferrell, Fuller, and Garrett were permitted to remain at large. Smelley remained in Phenix City, but his reputation was nor helped when news stori^ revealed that in 1952 he had testified in court that he knew of no gambling in Russell County. On July 16, Smelley was recalled to his regular duties in Montgomery, grumbling that he was being "made the goat." National Guardsmen had moved into Phenix City the morning after Patterson was slain. Under Major General Walter J. (Crack) Hanna, they became convinced that the greatest cover-up in Alabama history was being pulled right in their presence. They were powerless to stop it, however, unless the Governor would declare martial law. General Hanna repeatedly urged the Governor to give him authority to move in with the troops and to replace local law enforcement officers. A Grand jury in Birming- ham, which had been investigating vote fraud, discovered a tie-in with Phenix City and it, too, jumped on the Governor to take more positive action in Patterson's town. Newspapers and private citizens constantly needled the chief executive TlllK llOOMERANG IS oi) the matter until, on July 22, he declared qualified martial This operation proved of great significance in the murder M'.ii ill. It ripped aside a curtain of fear which had kept many li|m scaled. As the new testimony unfolded, some of the bt}-t(,'rsr under^vorld figures disappeared, along with dozens «i| rlic small fry. I.iiile by little, investigators pieced together the last mo- ments of Albert Patterson's life, but it wasn't easy, Testimony runfUcred and in some cases there was suspicion that false mi nri nation was given the probers deliberately. National Guardsmen raided the home of bed-ridden Deputy (ullet on July 27, where they seized a small arsenal of weapons. Hh that same day. Governor Persons flew to Washington t*H' conferences with President ELsenhower, the Federal Bu- mu\ of Investigation, and Major General Wilton (Jerry) I'n^itns, a top presidential aide. 1 he FBI announced it could not take part in the Phenix ity mess. It needed proof that some federal law had been ikted and no proof of any such violations was produced, murder itself appeared to be a state matter with no knlfial statutes involved. Syke.s moved his headquarters to rooms in the Coulter Bmld- U\\i down the hall from those occupied by the late Albert |*ilircrson. I*'.:ich morning, as the hot summer turned into fall, Sykes iind I lis staff parked their cars in the alley where Patterson WAS shfit. They strode to their work over the spot where Pat- in vm's blood had been scrubbed from the sidewalk. Sykes re- iiuiiiied confident that the murder would be solved, but FHiirious as to when. Witnesses were located who had seen the action in various Miip.i's, As the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle fell into place, it lH-r:inic clear that Patterson in his last days had become a ^lllin greatly feared by the Phenix City underworld. Here Wflu a liierarchy which had ruled its affairs almost unmolested (or decades until this man Patterson came along and threat- 16 PnENix City cned to bust up the premises. He hud to he stopped, legally or otherwise. The office of Alahama Attorney Genenil is that of the chief law enforcement officer of the state. He can remove solicitors— the job Ferrell had— and take over grand juries. He can go into any county and inv^tigate any conditions he desires. With such power at Patterson's disposal. Phenix City gam- blers and corrupt politicians could well imagine that he would deil them four years of misery. Attorney Cieneral Garrett, aligned with the Phenix Ciry syndicate politically. wanted his own regime to be continued and, since he could not seek re-election, he had fought Patterson with a Gadsden attorney named Lee Porter. 'llie motive for murder was there. The task became to find out who had triggered the gun. That brought the state to the question of who was doing what at the time of the murder. Garrett, who was in Birming- ham, claimed he was talking with Ferrell on the telephone. FulJer said he was in the county jail with Sheriff 1 1. Ralph Mathews and other officers. But there \\Trc wimesses ^\'ho said they had seen Fuller and Ferrell walk to the Coulter Building where Patterson was working. As November passed the midway mark, there was a grow- ing impatience throughout the state to bring the killers to justice. Newspapers began suggesting that perhaps all was not being done that could be done. The cost of the investiga- tion and maintaining National Guardsmen in Pheni.v City was a heavy dmin on the state's special funds. A meeting wis called in Montgomery on November 1. Present were the Governor, Supreme Court Justice Livingston, and John Patterson, nominated as Attorney General in place of his father. Ii was decided that Sykes and his investigaton; would be allov\'ed two weeks more before further steps would be taken. In late November, the Russell Grand ]\iry was called back Hf HoOIMERANG 17 Iriiii session to receive the evidence of the Patterson murder. I'Hr two weeks they heard witnesses. Hicn the state got a severe setback. On November 29. \\n '.i.ite carried its star witness, Johnny Frank Griffin, bc- fiHT rhe Grand Jun'. Griffin testified that he saw Fuller l«lliiii[i to Patterson in front of the Coulter Building, and M .illi tt by them. He said Fuller and Patterson walked together Ui I'.ittcrson's car a few steps away, and a second man ap- {liui. hcd the car. Then the shots rang out and Patterson i I'd from the car, blood covering his face. ■ he night after Griffin testified, he was dead. His throat lent as he walked only several blocks from the Courthouse. Icgro youth was arrested and charged with the murder. Iff uiiid GriflRn had "started trouble" and he had killed him. Itc investigators were not satLsfied with the stor\', but it ^H■kcd up by an ex -stripper who had once worked at ISeachic's Swing Club. Officers could not break the h's story, which ^vas labeled by John Patterson as "one of weird coincidences that could happen only in Phenix Ihi December 9, 1954, the Grand Jur>' returned murder IknliiiMicnts against Ferrell, Fuller and Garrett. Fuller and [ffiicll were arrested immediately, and a fugitive w-arrant issued for Garrett, who was in a mental hospital in :ston, Tcxas- Miise the state did not want to reveal its hand in a ts corpus proceeding, it was agreed that the former I'Mr and the ex-deputy sheriff would be allowed bail of . iliousand five hundred dollars each. it this point, Special Solicitor George C. Johnson, of ^cns, who had done such a magnificent job with the trial xe vice cases, and who had convicted Fuller on bribery w, pulled out of the picture to resume his duties in his circuit. Judge Walter B. Jones, of jMontgomery, who npi'inized the Grand Jury and later sentenced most of hi I iik( reers caught up in the cleaimp drive to prison terms, 18 Phenix City I'lir RoOMERANC 19 asked to be relieved to return to his duti«, which had piled high in his months away from his regular court duties. The state was faced with the problem of obtaining a top trial solicitor to replace Johnson, and another judge to preside at the murder trials, John Patterson became Attorney General for the state on January 18, and James E. Folsom became governor on the same day. Folsom immediately replaced General Hanna with Colonel William D. Partlow, of Tuscaloosa,, and the National Guard was ordered out of Phenix City, and the town placed back on limits to military personnel from Fort Benning. Patterson contacted Jefferson County Solicitor Emmctt Perry, in Birmingham, who had sparked the vote fraud in- vestigations there. Perry agreed to release one of his crack deputies to work with Patterson and his staff in the prosecu- tions. The man assigned was Cecil M, Deason, a Navy Com- mander during World War II, and one of the state's best trial attorneys. Chief Justice Livingston named Circuit Judge J. Russell McElroy, from Jefferson County, to preside at the trial. Judge McElroy, presiding judge of the state's largest circuit, was a veteran of twenty-seven years on the bench, though still in his middle fifties. He was a keen student of law, having written a standard textbook on evidence. Judge McElroy met with the Attorney General's staff and with defense attorneys in Montgomery in late January, and granted a defense motion to remove the trials to Jefferson County because the defendants claimed they could not get fair trials in Phenix City. Trial date was set for February 14, and the state elected to put Fuller to trial first. Prosecutor Deason, aided by three Assistant Attorney Generals Bernard Sykes, MacDonald Gallion and Lee Barton, and by Russell County's new solicitor, Jam^^ (^dwell, faced in the trial one of the best known defense attorneys in the busine^. Roderick Beddow, of Birmingham, predicted he would make a shambles of the state's case. He was agisted I In liis law partner, Robert W. Gwin, his son, Roderick III .Idow, Jr., and Phenbc City Attorney V. Cecil Curtis. I'or two weeks the state built its case. Prosecutor Deason (tiodiiccd an expen from the Federal Bureau of Identification (II trsiify that fingerprints taken from Patterson's car be- liHincd to Fuller. Then he produced State Toxicologist Wen- ilrll L. Sowcll, and State Investigator Willie B. Painter to usiify Fuller had told them he never touched the car. lliiikling his case carefully, Deason called to the stand a (miner Phenix City policeman, Walter Sanders, who testified III h.u! seen Fuller leave a cafe in the car with a big, cigar- ininl(ing man, and drive in the direction of the scene a few (itimitcs before the shooting, I'ullcr had denied being near the scene before the murder, fiiiil said he was at home at the time Sanders swore Fuller left Hip fiircry. Sanders also told of finding a footprint near the scene and Nlmwing it to Fuller shortly after the murder. He and Fuller |.hrfil a board over the print to protect it, he said, but when It. \vcnt back to the print with state investigators later it had lircu altered. ^ former taxicab driver. Bill Littleton, was brought to ilir witness stand from Kilby Prison to testify that he had iliivcn by the Coulter Building ten minutes before the shoot- [n^ And had seen Fuller and Ferrell there, Littleton had been iiMivicrcd of manslaughter during the vice cleanup and was M I viiig an eighteen months sentence. Next to the stand came a Columbus taxicab driver, James Uiiditis Taylor, who dropped the first explosive testimony in ilir niiil. He said he had stopped for a traffic light, near the • .Hihcr Building, when he heard the shots. As he moved nwiiy from the light, he said, he saw Fuller dash from the «had()v\' and into an automobile in which a man was waiting. I he car roared west on Fourteenth Street, through red traffic .i^nals, and dBappeared. The witne^ said he had known Fuller lor many years, and the defense could not shake his testimoay, lluuigh they tried to discredit him with clwratter witnesses. 20 Phejvix City Qmnny Kelley, a janitor at the Courthouse in PhenLx City, testified for the state. He said he heard the shots as he was closing the building. His watch showed the time as 9:05 P.M. Kelley said he walked to the front of the building and saw Fcrrell "half walking and half running" down the sidewalk in front of the U. S. Postoffice, w^hich adjoined the Coulter Building. But the state still had its ace to play. That came in the "surprise testimony" of a thirty-year-old carpenter, Cecil Padgett, Padgett testified that he was walking in the direction of the Coulter Building about 9 P.M. on the night of June 18, 1954, when he saw Pattenon and Fuller engaged in conversa- tion in front of the Coulter Building. As Padgett crossed the street toward where his wife waited in 3 car. he said, the shots rang out only a few seeps away. He turned to see Fuller and a man he believed to be Fcrretl beside Patterson's car. The defense spent days trying to break Padgett's testimony, pointing out that he had not appeared before the Grand Jury and had not told his stor\' until three weeks before the trial. The new Russell County Sheriff, Lamar Murphy, had con- tinued his quiet work on the case and had come up with Padgen, a witness who made up for the staters loss of Griffin. After nearly four weeks of the most sensational and bitterly fought trial in Alabama history, the jury got the case. About twenty hours later, on March 9, 1955, the verdict was read: We, the ]ury, find the defendant, Alben Fuller, guilty of Murder in the first degree, as charged in the indictment, and fix his punishment at life imprisonment." F'errell fared better before the Binningham jury. On May 5, 1955, he was acquitted of the charge of killing Patterson. His defense was led by Attorneys George Rogers and Drew Redden. Garrett is still in the mental institution at Galveston, Texas, but will face extradition when, and if, he is released. Fuller's alibi, supported by two state officers as well as Sheriff Mathews and others, was broken bv the state when kTiiK Boomerang 21 "was shown that the testimony of alibi witnesses was not insistent in time elements. The state contended that Fuller not go to the County Jail until after the murder, and ir he sped away from the scene, circled left and approached ic jail from the rear three minutes after the shooting. Fcrrell's alibi that he was on the telephone with Garrett, not supported by Garrett, who did not testify. There is no denial of the fact tiiat Garrett wms in a Binning- ini hotel, a hundred fifty miles from Phenix City, at the time uf the murder. Garrett had appeared that day before the Jefferson County Grand Jury which later indicted him for vote stealing. The state indicted Garrett for murder on the I thcor)^ of law that one who conspires with another to commit !• felony is equally guilty with the one who actually perpe- rated the act. What Ferrell's acquittal will do to the murder rtinrge against Garrett, has not been determined, but it is pure w weaken the case if it has not destroyed it. Patterson's relation to the mob, as a citizen of Phenix, was >dd. At times he assisted individuals connected with it; on ^©cciision he fought ir. He had fought it since 1951, and was buitling the scum for all he was worth in 1954, convinced it I hud to be destroyed before it destroyed the state. VVIicn Patterson ran for the State Senate in 1946, he was l-tipposed bv the machine. Four years later, as a candidate for f'lJeutenant Governor, the clique backed him in return for his |Up]>t>rt of machine aspirants in local races. In the 1950 elec- tion, Sheriff Mathews personally solicited the aid of every mlitT sheriff in the state for Patterson. The tide had flowed [iUt once more when Patterson ran as a delegate to the 1952 JcuHJcratic National Convention with machine opposition. \'\\v big problem was that the machine— and practically no else for that matter— never knew exactly where Patterson Jfiod. He essentially was a "loner" who worked in his own UiHige ways to obtain his objectives. Paticrson repr^ented members of the machine as an Horncy in years prior to 1950, but the machine never con- oiled him. When he set out to destroy the racket forces %2 Phenix City which held his city in an iron grip, he became a much feared man bs^ the mobsters who knew his dogged tenacity. The shots that killed Patterson boomeranged. In death, "The Man Against Crime" focused the nationwide spothght on the forces in Phenix City that he had set out to destroy. And they paid, as did he.